Few cities in the world have an entrance as theatrical as Jodhpur: from the top of its fortress you look down and discover an ocean of indigo-blue houses spilling down the hillside and crowding together as far as the eye can see, crowned by the sandstone bulk of Mehrangarh Fort, which seems to spring from the rock itself. The 'blue city' is one of those sights that justify a trip to Rajasthan on their own: maze-like, photogenic, steeped in warrior history and, at the same time, surprisingly authentic and warm, less polished for tourism than other gems in the region.
Jodhpur was the capital of the kingdom of Marwar, one of the great Rajput states, founded in the 15th century by the Rathore clan on the edge of the great Thar Desert. Its maharajas built Mehrangarh Fort on top of a hill, a colossal, impregnable fortress that was never taken by storm and is now considered one of the finest and best preserved in India, with an excellent museum. At its feet, the blue old town, the grand palace-residence of Umaid Bhawan and the delicate marble cenotaph of Jaswant Thada complete an ensemble of striking beauty.
This guide helps you make the most of Jodhpur: how to visit Mehrangarh Fort (with the best audio guide in India), why the houses are blue, where to get lost in the bazaar and eat the tasty food of Marwar, how to fit the city in between Jaipur, Udaipur and the desert, and which excursions are worth it. Jodhpur rewards the traveller who climbs to the fort at sunset, gets lost in its indigo alleys and lets themselves be won over by the tough, hospitable spirit of the heart of the Rajput desert.
Jodhpur was founded in 1459 by Rao Jodha, chief of the Rathore Rajput clan, who moved the capital of the kingdom of Marwar here from the old fortress of Mandore, a few kilometres to the north. To protect his new capital, Jodha began building Mehrangarh Fort on a rocky hill, and successive generations of maharajas expanded it until it became one of the most imposing fortresses in India. The kingdom of Marwar, on the edge of the Thar Desert, was one of the great Rajput states, famous for its warriors and its Marwari horses; like the others, it sometimes allied with the Mughal Empire and sometimes fought it, keeping its identity and its pride. Under British rule it became a princely state. In the 20th century, Maharaja Umaid Singh built the gigantic Umaid Bhawan Palace (completed in 1943), partly as a public works project to give his people jobs during a famine. After India's independence in 1947, Marwar-Jodhpur joined the Indian Union and became part of the state of Rajasthan. The nickname 'blue city' comes from the distinctive indigo colour in which many houses in the old town are painted. The full history of Marwar, the Rathores and Mehrangarh is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The land of the Rajputs, the warrior caste that raised colossal fortresses in the Thar Desert: blue Jodhpur, romantic Udaipur of the lakes and golden Jaisalmer among the dunes.
Read the history of Rajasthan and the desert →A local guide tells you in half an hour what no sign at the site will ever explain. We look ours up on Civitatis: guided in Spanish and booked online with no fuss. They have 8 activities in Jodhpur. And there are free tours here: you book without paying and tip the guide whatever you think at the end, so trying one costs you nothing. Have a look below: tap any of them to see them all.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The history of Jodhpur is inseparable from that of the Rathores, one of the great Rajput warrior clans of medieval India. According to tradition, the Rathores came from the Kannauj region, on the plains of the Ganges, and after their kingdoms fell to Muslim invaders they migrated west, to the harsh edge of the Thar Desert, where from the 13th century onwards they gradually built their own domain. That arid, drought-stricken region would be called Marwar, a name often translated as 'the land of death' or 'the desert region', because of its harsh climate.
The first capital of the Rathore kingdom of Marwar was Mandore, an ancient city with its own fortress, a few kilometres north of present-day Jodhpur. From there, generations of Rathore chiefs consolidated their power over a contested territory, through alliances, wars with neighbouring clans and the constant threat of the powers to the north. The Rathores earned a reputation as proud, untameable warriors, loyal to the Rajput code of honour, and they bred the famous Marwari horse, with its inward-curving ears, a symbol of the region.
In the mid-15th century, an ambitious Rathore chief named Rao Jodha inherited a weakened kingdom and decided to give it a new, safer capital. Mandore, down on the plain, was hard to defend, so Jodha looked for a steep, rocky hill on which to build an impregnable fortress. That move would found the city that bears his name.
In 1459, Rao Jodha moved the capital of Marwar from Mandore to an isolated rocky hill that was easier to defend, and there he began building Mehrangarh Fort, which would become the city's enduring symbol. The new capital grew at the foot of the fortress and took its founder's name: Jodhpur, 'the city of Jodha'. The choice of site was strategic — a commanding, impregnable position overlooking the desert routes — though legend adds a dramatic touch to the founding.
Mehrangarh Fort wasn't built overnight: it took centuries. Rao Jodha laid the foundations, but it was his successors who, generation after generation, extended the walls — which reach 36 metres in height — and added monumental gates, richly decorated palaces, courtyards and temples, until it became one of the largest and most splendid fortresses in India. Its name, Mehrangarh, is usually interpreted as 'fort of the sun' (after Mihir, a solar deity from whom the Rathores claimed descent).
Marwar-Jodhpur thus established itself as one of the most powerful Rajput kingdoms in western India. Its desert location, far from the centres of Mughal power, and the Mehrangarh fortress gave it a remarkable capacity to resist. But over the following centuries, like the rest of Rajasthan, it would have to negotiate its place in relation to the Mughal giant that ruled the north of the subcontinent.
During the 16th and 17th centuries, Marwar's fate was shaped by its relationship with the powerful Mughal Empire that ruled northern India. Like other Rajput kingdoms, the Rathores alternated between submission and military service to the emperors and episodes of resistance and rebellion. Some maharajas of Jodhpur served as trusted Mughal generals and fought in their campaigns across the subcontinent, which brought wealth and prestige, but also tension with Rajput pride.
The most dramatic episode came in the late 17th century, under the rigid, expansionist emperor Aurangzeb. When Maharaja Jaswant Singh died without a recognised direct heir, Aurangzeb tried to take direct control of Marwar and annex it to the empire. But a courageous Rathore noble, Durgadas Rathore, led a stubborn resistance lasting decades to protect the rightful heir, the child Ajit Singh, and restore him to the throne. That struggle, which combined cunning, guerrilla warfare and sacrifice, is remembered as one of the great feats of Rajput honour, and it ended with the dynasty restored in Jodhpur.
As Mughal power weakened in the 18th century, Marwar regained de facto independence, although it became caught up in the power struggles that ravaged northern India, including wars with neighbouring Jaipur and Maratha raids. In this period, amid conflict and courtly splendour, the city's heritage grew richer: the fort's palaces were expanded and temples, havelis and monuments were built that we still admire today.
In the early 19th century, Marwar-Jodhpur, like most Rajput kingdoms, signed a treaty with the British East India Company and became a princely state under British suzerainty: it kept its maharaja and its internal autonomy in exchange for recognising the Raj's authority in military and foreign affairs. Under this arrangement, the Rathore dynasty kept its throne and its pomp, while the city slowly modernised with the arrival of the railway and new institutions.
The most notable episode of the period came in the 20th century with Maharaja Umaid Singh. Faced with a long, devastating drought that plunged Marwar into famine in the late 1920s, the ruler launched a colossal project that still dominates the city today: the Umaid Bhawan palace, built between 1929 and 1943. Beyond serving as a royal residence, its construction had an explicit social purpose: to provide work and a livelihood for thousands of farmers and craftspeople ruined by the drought, in a kind of gigantic public relief project. For years, building the palace — one of the largest in the world, in Art Deco and Indo-Saracenic style — fed a good part of the population.
This gesture, a mix of princely vanity and responsibility towards the people, sums up the ambiguous role of the maharajas in the twilight of the Raj: rulers of extravagant luxury and, at the same time, guarantors of a paternalistic relationship with their subjects. The palace, completed in the middle of the Second World War, would be one of the last great monuments of the age of the maharajas.
After India's independence in 1947, the princely state of Marwar-Jodhpur, like the other Rajput kingdoms, joined the Indian Union, and in 1949 it became part of the new state of Rajasthan, with Jaipur as its capital. The maharajas lost their political power and, in 1971, their official titles and allowances too, although the Jodhpur royal family has kept considerable symbolic prestige and much of its heritage, which it has successfully repurposed: Mehrangarh Fort is now a model museum run by a family trust, and part of the Umaid Bhawan palace is an exclusive luxury hotel.
21st-century Jodhpur is a city of more than a million people, the second-largest urban centre in Rajasthan, with an economy based on trade, crafts (it's a major hub for spices, furniture, textiles and antiques exported all over the world), industry and, increasingly, tourism. Its blue old town, its imposing fort and its authentic atmosphere have made it one of the favourite stops for anyone travelling around Rajasthan, and its image — the sea of indigo houses beneath the fortress — is one of the most recognisable in India, featured in documentaries, films and all kinds of campaigns.
For travellers, Jodhpur offers an unusual balance: the grandeur of a great fort and royal palaces alongside the warmth of a city that still lives at its own pace, with its spice bazaars, its glasses of makhaniya lassi by the clock tower and its rooftops for watching the evening fall over Mehrangarh. Behind the blue and the glitter of the royal past there are, as everywhere in India, contrasts and challenges; but few cities convey so powerfully the tough, hospitable character of the Rajput desert heartland.
